“We’ll have to sit down and talk about what would be an appropriate number” for the committee, said Slive, who chaired the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee for the 2008-09 season. “There have been different numbers floated around — 16, 20. We certainly want to have enough members of the committee so that when certain committee members have to recuse themselves, we still have a significant group of people considering all the data and evaluating the teams. [Emphasis added.]

Yep, they’re going to replace the current animal – you know, the one everyone complains about being biased and having conflicts of interest – with one that’s openly structured to admit that it’s subject to bias and conflicts. But don’t worry. They’ll have very strict rules and guidelines in place to direct how the voters compile their ballots.

”I visualize it working not unlike the men’s basketball committee that I was on and chaired for a year. You have both data and statistics and information, and then you couple that with what you see.“

Well, at least they won’t be turning the ballots over to SIDs to vote in their names. That’s progress, friends.

I’m concerned that we traded one biased system that relies on biased opinion polls and subjective rankings that were at least somewhat public to a system where the contenders are decided in a back room of some hotel over whiskey and Bernie Machen’s cigars.

“Yep, they’re going to replace the current animal – you know, the one everyone complains about being biased and having conflicts of interest – with one that’s openly structured to admit that it’s subject to bias and conflicts.”

Bias is unavoidable and a part of life. You can strive to be fair despite your biases, but you cannot simply eliminate bias. It really is far better to acknowledge up front that bias is there than to ignore that fact. So I think this new committee really does represent a step in the right direction.